8-^ 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT: 



A DISCOURSE, 



DELIVERED IN j j ^ 



THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, TROY, 



JULY FOURTH, 1841. 



BY NATHAN S. S. BE MAN. 



TROY, N. Y.: 

N. TUTTLE, PRINTER, CCXXV. RIVER-STREET. 

1841. 



111. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



TEOY, JirLY9, 1841. 
REV. NATHAN S. S. BEMAN, 

Dcrir Sir — At a meeting held at the Session Room of the First Presb\ierian 
Church, on the evening of the Sth instant, the undersigned, appointed fur that pur- 
pose, were directed to solicit for ]Hii)Heaiiun ihe Uiscour>e dehvered by you on 
Sabbath morning hist, as ap|)roprialc to tlje aiuiiversaiy of onr National Indepen- 
dence. 

Agreeably to this direction, we respecl fully solicii a copy nfiliat l)i>c(ini'se lor 
publication, to be executed under the superinli-iidnni' (jf n conmiillce to be ap- 
pointed for tliat ]inr|iose. 

We are, with great respect, 

Your obedient serv;u)ts, 

H. C. KOSSITER, 
ANDREW L.A.DUE, 
L. VANDERIIEYDEN, 
JOSEPH WHITE, 
CHAELES P. HARTT. 



TROY, .TuLY 10, ISll. 
TO THE COMMITTEE : 

Gentlemen — I have received, and read with much gratification, your com- 
munication of yesterday ; and would say in reply, that I will submit to your dispos- 
al a copy of the Discourse delivered on the 4th of July, — but for special reasons I 
wish to withhold it from publication for a few weeks. At the expiration of the pe- 
riod I have proposed to myself, it shall be placeil in your hands. 
Most respectfully yours, 



NATHAN S. S. BEMAN. 



Messrs. H. C. Rossiter, Andrew Ladite, 
L. Van//erhei/den, Joseph White, 
Charles P. Hartt. 



DISCOUESE. 



The discovery of this continent by Columbus, whe- 
ther contemplated as an effect or a cause, must ever 
occupy a high place among the illustrious events of 
our world. While we should ascribe this eventful 
discovery to the wise providence of God, we may, at 
the same time, consider it as the necessary result of 
the progress of human improvement. It was an end 
naturally attained by that spirit of active enterprize 
which had already begun its career in Europe, and 
which, for many years anterior to this period, had ex- 
erted an influence upon the various interests of hu- 
man life. 

The fifteenth century was an age of mind. We 
must not expect, however, to see the human intellect 
at that time, highly cultivated or richly stored ; nor 
to find knowledge generally or widely diffused : but 
the darkness which had, for centuries, brooded over 
the nations, was now passing away, and the fetters 
which had fast bound the human powers, were great- 
ly relaxed, though not effectually broken. A new 
era had begun. If the sun had not already purpled 



the east, or gilded the mountain-tops, the morning 
star had arisen, and as a commissioned herald, bear- 
ing his credentials with him, and making his own j^ro- 
clamation, had prophesied of a bright and coming 
day. 

The rotundity of the earth was now fully believed 
by men of knowledge and research; the mariner's 
compass had been invented and ajDj^hed to the jiur- 
poses of navigation; the art of printing had taught 
men, to some extent, to give permanency and rapid 
circulation to thought; and at the very dawn of the 
next century, originating, no doubt, in the same spirit 
of intellectual emancipation, the lights of religious li- 
berty, which have never since been extinguished, 
were kindled up in some parts of Germany, and bla- 
zed on the mountains, amid the pure air and the clear 
streams of Switzerland. In one word, the old world 
was prepared for the birth of the new. The time 
appointed of heaven, and matured by the progress of 
man, and clearly indicated by the position and rela- 
tions of the world, had arrived for the consummation 
of the grand result of pre-existing causes; and in that 
result to furnish a future cause which should, for 
centuries, and probably through all coming ages, put 
forth an influence, in shaping the destinies of the 
world, as powerful as any other event recorded on 
the page of history. 

And since that period, the discovery of this coun- 
try, with its affiliated and kindred events, has exert- 
ed an almost unbounded influence over man. It has 
changed the course of human affairs from the chan- 



nel in which they were flowing along, and in which 
they might have continued to flow, for many ages, if 
this continent had not emerged from the dark ocean 
in which it had been buried, perhaps from tlie infan- 
cy of its being, or certainly from time immemorial, 
from the eye of civilized man. 

It is my purpose to trace, on the present occasion, 
the already ascertained, and the future probable, re- 
sults of the discovery and settlement of this Western 
Hemisphere ; and especially that portion of it which 
constitutes our own Republic. 

Many things connected with this inquiry, and deep- 
ly interesting to man, are now matters of history, and 
may be appealed to as authentic facts; and others 
are among the coming events which have indicated 
their future existence by casting their shadows before 
them ; and may be foreseen with probability, and, in 
some instances, with certainty, by an eye accustomed 
to trace the connection of cause and effect, and to 
follow, in successive order, a long series of pohtical 
and moral acts and their results. 

The earliest and the most obvious influence exert- 
ed by the discovery of the new world, was seen and 
felt in the impulse given to industry and enter- 
prize throughout the greater part of Europe. If this 
discovery was originally one of the numerous achieve- 
ments of that spirit, as already intimated, its relations 
were soon changed, and it became, in its turn, the 
parent of a similar, and a more vigorous offspring; 
and every land, and every department of life, was at 
once cheered by its presence, and resuscitated by its 



8 

power. The maritime countries where this spirit 
was first awakened, and whose connections with this 
subject were more direct and intimate than others, 
felt, as we may readily suppose, the earliest and 
strongest sympathy with every thing which related 
to this continent; but these, by new relations and ex- 
tending interests, soon communicated their impulse 
to others, till central Europe, and the commercial 
islands of the sea, and the whole civilized world, 
were made to feel the magic touch of a single fact. 
America blazed as a new star in the western sky; 
and the vast interests, real and imaginary, which 
threw a halo of brightness around it, attracted the 
gaze of every eye, and kindled up an unwonted ar- 
dor among the nations. The best informed and the 
most civilized communities of the eastern hemis- 
phere, from the centre to the extremities, became in- 
terested, directly or indirectly, in the new state of 
things. The human mind, which was beginning to 
emerge from ages of darkness, was now brought un- 
der the influence of new motives, and was moved by 
strono- attractions. Kings and cabinets felt their pow- 
er; and all their resources, intellectual and j^hysical, 
were laid under contribution, that they might carry 
out and perfect their schemes. Ambition dreamed 
of novel fields of conquest where immortal wreaths 
miohtbe gathered to adorn the victor's brow; and 
avarice saw, in the dim and hazy distance, lofty 
mountains of gold, and deep and unexplored caverns 
of diamonds and other precious stones. The rival 
powers of Europe which had contended for pre-em- 



inence on the soil of the old world, transfused the 
same spirit across the Atlantic, and became competi- 
tors for discovery, dominion and wealth, on the soil 
of the new. 

And this excitement was not confined to the ele- 
vated ranks of life, nor to the master-spirits of the 
age. The wealthy, the ambitious, and the learned, 
first cauoht the flame, but it eventually kindled the 
whole mass. It descended from the throne of power 
and the saloon of fashion, to the straw-thatched cot- 
tage and the humble work-shop, till all ranks in so- 
ciety were brought under ne^v influences ; and these 
had their origin in the discovery and colonization of 
the Western Continent. As viewed by the popular 
mind, and as it stood prospectively connected with 
the interests of man, it was a fact of more deep and 
thrilling power than any recorded on the page of 
history. It was so exciting in its nature — 30 extend- 
ed and various in its ramifications — and its interests 
and influence were so interwoven with all others, li- 
terary, scientific, political, moral and religious, that it 
furnished, at once, the lever and the power which 
moved the world. 

Nearly allied to this general excitement, imparted 
by the event we are contemplating, we may notice 
tlie new outlet which was o[)ened for the overgrown 
population of the eastern continent. The precise in- 
fluence of this upon human happiness, for a single 
generation, it might be difficult to ascertain. The 
condition of many of the colonists was, no doubt, 
greatly improved, while not a few passed through 

9 



10 

"unexampled hardships, and went down, with blight- 
ed hopes, to an early grave. But draining off the 
surjDlus population from the older countries of Eu- 
Tope, produced, on the whole, a salutary effect upon 
their political and moral condition. Wars were, pro- 
bably, rendered less frequent, and in the incipient 
enterprize of planting colonies, the people became 
more important in the estimation of their rulers. 
The new uses to which man could be applied, added 
a new value to human life, created additional safe- 
guards for his protection, stayed the footsteps of car- 
nage, and, in some instances, it is not improbable, 
weakened the arm of oppression. It is true, that in 
order to finish the picture, we must take into the ac- 
count the bloody and often unprovoked wars which 
were waged upon the original occupants of this soil, 
the bitter cruelty of which neither our fathers nor 
their sons, have been, as yet, willing to atone. It has 
always seemed to me, on the clearest principles of 
reason and morals, to be a reproach to civilization 
and the christian religion — these twin sisters of cha- 
rity — that such a noble race of men should be exter- 
minated in their march, or be left to expire within 
the reach of their hand, and under the inspection of 
their eye. But I must not indulge in this digression 
from my main purpose. 

Nor will I dwell longer on those results of the dis- 
covery of this country which respect man merely as 
a being capable of animal enjoyment or suffering. 
Among the more important and more enduring, as it 
regards its influence ujion his interests as an intellec- 



11 

tiial and moral being, upon the institutions of society of 
which he is a member, and upon the social character of 
the world, is the opportunity which this country af- 
fords of a full and fair experiment of self-government 
among an enlightened and active people. This re- 
mark must be applied to the Western Continent with 
many and great qualifications. Some of the colonies 
brought with them across the Atlantic, the principles 
of a rapid growth, a gradual decay, and final self-dis- 
solution. The Castalian and the Gaul were not fit- 
ted for such an enterprizc. Colonization has nev- 
er flourished in their hands; and especially has it 
proved a failure when contemplated as the germ, or 
the opening bud, of prospective liberty and ultimate 
independence. They admitted some materials into 
the frame-work of their colonial oovernments — or 
there was something unsound in the foundation and 
corner-stone of social virtue and religious principle, 
which operated as a drawback upon their prosper- 
ity; and time, which is the only sure test of what is 
wise and expedient in human institutions, has already 
presented to the world, as the workmanship of their 
hands, a frail and shattered structure, and, in some 
instances, exhibited little less than a mouldering mass 
of ruins. In some cases their rich possessions have 
passed into more vigorous hands, and have come un- 
der the dominion of wiser councils and a better poli- 
cy; and, in others, where revolution has been pro- 
jected and entered upon, for the j^urpose of promoting 
freedom and securing the rights of man, the experi- 
ment has been less decisive and triumphant than 



12 

could have been wished. For a fair, and full, and 
unembarrassed test of the principle of self-govern- 
ment — we must look to the Anglo-Saxon colonies. 
They possessed not only the physical, but the moral 
qualities, demanded for a work of this nature. They 
had not only the bone and muscle and enterprize, 
necessary as the elements of such an undertaking, 
but they brought with them a more enlightened 
Christianity, and a better code of moral duties, than 
any other adventurers to this western world. The 
territory now constitutino- the United States — the 
greater part of which was once covered with English 
colonies — seems to have been selected by God and 
man, for testing — and, it may be, for forever settling — 
the simple, though momentous question, ^'"ivliether a 
people can govern themselves !' Thus far the attempt 
has proved successful. The experience of more 
than half a century, has, in some good degree, tested 
the strength and durability of our institutions, and 
given the friends of freedom and equal rights reason 
to hope, that their final and time-tried results may 
be as permanent, as the present aspect is bright and 
cheering. 

If any should be disjDosed to think, that it is merely 
an incidental occurrence, that the settlement of this 
country has furnished a fit occasion for the con- 
struction of a government embracing equal rights, 
and where the power is confessedly and practically 
in the hands of the people — it may be replied, that 
no other experiment could well have been made, or 
the problem have been solved in any other way. 



13 

Where was there a spot on the other continent, or 
on the wide earth, open for such a purpose I None 
of the larger kingdoms or empires were disposed, or 
are now disposed, to enter upon such a measure. 
And if any of the smaller States had adopted the 
broad notions of political and religious freedom, as 
held in this country, they could no more have contin- 
ued to exist, in the midst of surrounding influences, 
than a single spark of fire could live and burn in the 
centre of the ocean. Such a republic, amidst the 
crowned and mitred heads of Europe, would have 
been a lamb among wolves. The little republics of 
Venice and Genoa, though they never fully carried 
out the principle of self-government, and though pop- 
ular rights continued to be crushed l)eneath the su- 
perincumbent weight of an overgro\vn and proud 
aristocracy, have long since read, amidst their own 
political ruins, an admonitory lecture to the world 
which will not soon be forootten. 

But other and more formidable obstacles were in 
the way of a fair trial of self-government, in Eu- 
rope. No people in any country were prepared 
to govern themselves, at the time this continent was 
discovered, and began to be planted with colonies. 
Had the population of any part of the old world 
been taken up, in mass, and transferred to any ter- 
ritory of the new, they could not have formed a re- 
public with any rational hope of success. They 
were born under unpropitious stars for such an en- 
terprize. They had been educated in a poor school, 
and had formed their habits and modes of thinking 



14 

under a bad political dynasty, for the great work of 
teaching the world the lessons of self-government. 
There were choice spirits, it is true, in many coun- 
tries, competent to this undertaking, but they were 
only the few among the many, — and to these the 
voice of Providence seemed to say, come out from 
among them, and found a new empire in a new 
world — plant the Tree of Freedom in a soil remote 
from the tyrant's ax and fire — and then repose under 
its cool shade — inhale the fragrance of its opening 
flowers — and partake of its ambrosial fruit. This 
tree is of fairer proportions, of more beauteous foliage, 
and of sweeter product, than any which ever grew 
upon the earth, except the one planted by the hand 
of God, which remained untasted, and bore the name 
of the " Tree of Life." Of these two trees, the lat- 
ter grew in Paradise, and the former is now taking 
deep root in the land of our birth and our love. 
They may belong, for aught I know, to the same 
genus. 

If the opening of this continent to civilized man, 
had been distinguished by no other j^eculiar feature, 
than the one now sjiecified, it would deserve a high 
2')lace in the annals of the world. This was the great 
desideratum of the nations. The rights of man had 
been, for ages, committed for safe keeping to the 
hands of kings, and lords, and political ecclesiastics; 
and where this " three-fold cord" was thrown around 
the necks of the people, there was little prospect of a 
speedy change for the better. Hope, long deferred? 
had made "the heart sick." The governments of 



15 

the earth, with a very few exceptions, had been 
founded in oppressionand violence, and had been ad- 
ministered with one single object steadily before the 
eye, and that was the aggrandizement of the few by 
the sacrifice of the rights and interests of the many. 
Asia, from the days of the potent Nimrod, had 
groaned aloud, and bled at every pore, under this 
ponderous curse. Her kingdoms had been kept in 
agitation, by "the mighty thunderbolts of war," and 
her plains had drunk the blood of slaughtered mill- 
ions, for no other purpose, than that of crushing one 
oppressive dynasty to set up another of the same 
character in its place; and of putting down one des- 
pot, in order to exalt another, perhaps, still more 
reckless and bloody, to the throne. The good of the 
people was never thought of The exaltation of 
man — the cultivation of his mind — the improvement 
of his morals — the calling forth and perfecting of his 
energies — and the multiplication and enlargement of 
the sources of his rational and social enjoyments, 
had never excited the attention or disturbed the tran- 
quility of those who looked upon themselves as born 
to command, and who claimed it as their impre- 
scriptible right to drive their chariots of iron over 
the necks of the down-trodden and the oppressed. 
Such objects as these would have formed an aim too 
low for the minds of statesmen and heroes. And the 
same picture, with its strong colors a little faded, 
would present the true image of too many of the gov- 
ernments of Europe. It is not necessary, in this de- 
scription, to state the case stronger than it is. It 



16 

need not be affirmed that liberty had been banished 
from that quarter of the globe — that her purest fires 
did not glow and burn in any hearts — or that the ex- 
isting systems of government were not, in many res- 
pects, the monuments of wisdom, benevolence and 
justice. But while we accord all that truth and cha- 
rity can demand — it may be safely affirmed, that 
there is not one jDolitical system in Europe, which is 
founded on the principle of equal rights. Distinc- 
tions are created, by immemorial usage and by sta- 
tute law, which God and nature never sanctioned. 
Man is treated as the creature of circumstances, 
stripped of the attribute of self-government, and 
loaded down with adventitious disabilities which 
crush him to the earth, and "grind him to powder." 
It is here, and here alone, that the fundamental law 
of the land professes to sanction and carry out the 
decree of nature and of nature's God, " that all men 
are created equal — that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain unalienable rights — that among 
these are life, liberty, and the joursuit of happiness." 

But as important as this point may seem — and as 
lasting and beneficent as the influence of our political 
institutions may be, in securing the richest blessings 
to ourselves and to our posterity, and in their direct 
and incidental action upon other nations, there is one 
other result of the event now under examination, 
which deserves, perhaps, a still higher place in our 
estimation, and in our grateful recollections: — I mean 
the practical connection of this country with the 
Christian Religion. If civil and political liberty is suit- 



17 

ed to the nature of man ; if it is necessary, in order 
to call forth and perfect the highest capabilities of 
his being, religious liberty is much more so. The 
former is freedom in relation to man; the latter is 
freedom in relation to God. The one contemplates 
and protects the interests of men as social beings; 
the other respects the rights of conscience, which are 
priceless in value, and which are too sacred for the 
interference, however indirect or remote, of any be- 
ing but our Creator and ourselves. 

The condition of the world, at the time this coun- 
try was discovered, and began to be peopled by Eu- 
ropean colonies, w^as, as it regards this subject, to the 
last degree, dark and depressing. The lights of 
Christianity which had been kindled by the x4.postles, 
and which had been kept alive for several centuries, 
by their successors, was now dimmed and almost ex- 
tinguished. The corrupt alliance of church and state, 
had robbed the gospel of all its native power and 
loveliness; and its sanctions which were intended, by 
its author, to reclaim the heart from evil, and pro- 
mote even-handed justice between man and man, 
were employed for hardly any other purpose than 
to prop the throne of despotic power, and to rob the 
j^eople of the rights and attributes of men. Both 
the design, and the tendency, of this unholy alliance, 
was to disrobe the gospel of its heavenly lustre, and 
perpetuate the worst forms of human oppression. 
The darkness of Europe in this respect, might be 
felt. It was a midnight without a moon, or star, or 

3 



feeble taper to break, by a solitary ray, the dark, and 
dense, and pervading gloom ! 

But before our own country was settled by English 
colonies, the religious state of Europe had greatly 
changed for the better. The reformation commenc- 
ed by Luther, twenty-five years after the discovery 
of this country by Columbus, and prosecuted by other 
congenial spirits — the friends of man and of free dis- 
cussion — had Ijroken the mysterious sj^ell, and marred 
the triple crown, and brought into doubt the infalli- 
bility of the head that wore it. But even at that pe- 
riod, though the darkness was breaking away, the 
rights of conscience and of private judgment were 
neither understood, nor protected. The Pilgrim 
Fathers of New England, who were probably the 
most enlightend and pious men that ever colonized 
any country, were rooted up from their own native 
soil, and driven across the ocean by the storms of 
persecution. In the most christian and catholic king- 
dom of the old world — a kingdom boasting of its 
"Magna Charta" and its protestant Christianity — 
they were not permitted to preserve conscience in- 
violate, in the worship of God. But these men were 
honest. They counted the cost, and made their de- 
cision, and acted upon it. They cheerfully braved 
the ocean-storm, encountered the oloom of the vast 
and unbroken wilderness, and cxj^osed themselves to 
the treachery of savage neighbors, rather than deny 
God, and sacrifice religious principle. I revere their 
memory for these heroic acts. I would write their 
names upon the face of heaven, in stars, or give them 



19 

to the winds to be floated, in triumph, to the ends of 
the earth. This generation, our land, and the world 
are deeply indebted to them for their moral courage, 
audits blessed results; and it is believed, that the 
last generation of men who shall stand upon the earth, 
in the perfected reign of Christ, will reap a rich har- 
vest of spiritual blessings from their magnanimity, 
their steady adherence to principle, and their disin- 
terested sacrifices. 

In this country, and in this alone, religion is placed 
upon the proper basis ; and I pray God, that no po- 
litical intriguing — no human revolutions — may ever 
shake it from its deep and holy foundations. Every 
man should be left free in the enjoyment of his own 
religious views, and in the performance of his own 
religious rites. In these he may claim protection 
from the State, and beyond tliis the civil power 
cannot go. This is the basis on which our govern- 
ment has placed religion ; and it is no small triumph 
of principle, m this matter, that the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, is, in no country producing more blessed 
fruits, than under the operation of the voluntary prin- 
ci})le in our own. 

Without laying claim to prophetic gifts, or arro- 
gating to myself any special foresight or sagacity in 
these matters, I firmly believe, that the popular prin- 
ciple in government, and the voluntary principle in 
religion, are, in their combined action with many 
other things which belong intrinsically to our coun- 
try and our position, destined to carry forward this 
nation to an eminence never yet attained by any 



20 

people. We cannot look forward one or two cen- 
turies, without being wrapioecl in those bright visions 
of the future which all must devoutly wish may he 
true; and which nothing but our own errors and 
vices can render unreal and fallacious. 

Nor will the joyful consequences be restricted to 
our own republic, or to this hemisphere. From the 
first settlement of this country, its reflex action on the 
old world, may be clearly traced; and this influence 
has strengthend with every revolving year. Since 
the acknowledgement of our independence, by other 
nations, the maturity of our political system, and the 
practical developement of our physical resources, 
the name and power of America have been known 
and felt in every land — on every continent and every 
island of the globe. Nor is this reflex moral power 
likely to cease, or diminish. From the increased fa- 
cilities of intercourse among the nations, the world is 
brought together, and men thus congregated, will 
think, compare, and form their own conclusions. 
The power of steam, though it has been apj^lied and 
governed mainly by the hand of avarice, will yet be 
enlisted in the cause of letters, science, freedom and 
religion. Indeed it is already promoting their inter- 
ests : for the most part indirectly and incidentally 
it is true, but still powerfully and effectually doing 
the work. As the enterprising, the great, and the 
good of all nations are brought more and more into 
social and mental contact, we may expect that na- 
tional prejudices will subside, and that whatever is 
excellent in legislation, national policy, and religion. 



21 

will be candidly examined, and universally adopted. 
Our own position, in this resjoect, is peculiar. From 
the recency of our origin as a nation, and situated as 
we are, remote from the political collisions of the 
eastern continent, we have a moral power of our own 
for making a favorable impression on the nations of 
the earth. Here, more than in armies and navies, 
lies our national j5i'owess — a prowess that may sub- 
due the world, not to our yoke, but to our princi- 
ples. 

And this work has already begun. The fire is 
now burning, though covered up and smothered in 
many a heart, in different and far distant lands, which 
was kindled by sparks from American altars. This 
lire long since burst into a iiame, on the plains of 
Greece, and achieved its object. The workings of 
the same influence may be seen, at this day, in the 
struo-oles of the Eno-hsh dissenters, who demand reli- 
gious freedom at the hands of their rulers, as they 
have received it at the hands of God ; and in the pro- 
secution of their rights, on this subject, they are deal- 
ing blows upon the Church Establishment, till the old 
fabric reels under their intellectual and moral power. 
It is the same war of jorinciple which was once wag- 
ed, in that land, by our Puritan fathers, and from 
which they were compelled, by the force of circum- 
stances, to retreat to this western wilderness. The 
contest was suspended only for a time. The sj")irit 
which gave birth to it, lives in the heart of the nation, 
and can expire only with its being. It has been re- 
newed upon the success of the iVmerican experiment ; 



22 

and it will never be relinquished till the voluntary 
principle is carried out, and till men in that country, 
as in this, may enjoy the right of adopting their own 
religion, not by an act of Parliament, but by an act 
of mind — and of obeying the dictates of conscience 
without l)aying a money-tax for the privilege. 

In contemplating our own position, and the great 
moral power which the radical principles of our gov- 
ernment, and our religious freedom, are adapted to 
exert on other nations, it must ever be a matter of 
deep regret to the patriot and the christian, that there 
should have been such defects in carrying out these 
principles, as must greatly obscure their lustre, and 
essentially retard their jDi'ogress. But such is the 
fact, and it is in vain to close our eyes against it. 
Could we succeed in obscuring our own vision, we 
can never put out the eyes of the world; and our 
highest attainment would be to deceive ourselves, 
and not others. We are bound to meet the difhculty 
to which I refer, with the magnanimity that becomes 
a powerful and free people. If an American should 
wonder, as he sometimes does, why the nations of 
Europe do not admire the sun of freedom which bla- 
zes in our heavens, and why they are not disposed to 
walk in the beams of its brightness ; he ought to be 
told, for his own humiliation, that republican hands 
have hung a dark cloud over one half ol' its orb, and 
produced a long and sad eclipse. 

The existence of American Slavery, for more than 
half a century, under a free constitution, has unfold- 
ed a new page in the book of man ; it has opened an- 



23 

other seal, and unrolled another parchment, written 
within and without, with the deep, and dark, and 
hidden things of human paradoxes. It has demon- 
strated that men may be clamorous for liberty, and re- 
cord It m their own political oracles, as an " unalien- 
able" right, and at the same time, frame oppression 
by law, and fasten chains on their fellows whom they 
declare, upon the title-page of their national history, 
to be their " equals." It is to be feared, that as a 
nation, we are somewhat blinded on this subject ; 
that we often come to the adjudication of this whole 
case, with a bribe burning in our right hand, and with 
the heart, which should glow with devotion towards 
the heavens, and melt with kindness to the earth, 
breathing rebellion against the indelible image of 
God, and the unalienable rights of man. It is to be 
feared, that in this respect, we are furnishing another 
illustration, that men may see motes in their brother's 
eye while there are beams in their own. With what 
cutting irony might a slave, if he were familiar with 
the Declaration of Independence and the Bible, apply 
the words of the Hebrew bard to his republican mas- 
ter : " It was not an enemy that reproached me ; then 
I could have borne it. But it was diou, a man — mine 
equal." 

The picture drawn by Solomon, from his own ob- 
servation, is a true likeness of the world in every ao-e. 
It IS taken, and touched, to the life. I hope in heaven, 
that our own country may yet prove herself an ex- 
ception. " So I returned and considered all the op- 
pressions that are done under the sun: and behold 



24 

the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no 
comforter." How true is this picture, both in the 
outhne, and the lilhng up l While we boast of our 
national freedom, who sympathizes with the down- 
trodden slave 1 On the morning of our National birth- 
day, for example, which is hailed with songs of glad- 
ness by more than fourteen millions of free hearts^ 
what chord of tenderness vibrates to the interests of 
three millions, in domestic bondaoe, amono- us ? With 
a few noble exceptions, they have " no comforter." 
Both 2^ower and sympathy are found " on the part of 
their oj^pressors." In tlie halls of legislation, in the 
courts of justice, at the bar of public opinion, on the 
arena of j^olitical strife, and at the altar of God, they 
are often denied a hearing. On this point, church 
and state, in this republic, are united. Solomon was 
right — the oppressed have " no comforter"; and the 
poet has not overdrawn the melting picture : 

" Who shall avenge the Slave ? I stood and cried ; 
The earth — the earth — the echoing sea replied. 
I turned me to the ocean, but each wave, 
Declined to be the avenger of the slave. 
Who shall avenge the slave ? My species cry, 
The winds, the waves, the lightnings of the sky. 
I turned to these : from them one nnn-mur ran, 
The right avenger of the slave is man. 
Man was my fellow — next by him I stood. 
Wept, and besought him by the voice of blood. 
Scornful he looked, as proud on earth he trod, 
Then said, the avenger of the slave is God. 
I looked, in prayer, to heaven : awhOe 'twas still, 
And then, methouglit, God's voice replied, I will." 

If this one evil were abolished, in our own coun- 
try, such is the genius of our government, and such 
the activity, enterprize and perseverance of our 



25 

countrymen, that I verily believe, the term of half a 
century would be sufficient to carry freedom and 
Christianity, in triumph, around the globe. 

Incompetent as I am to the task, I cannot dismiss 
such a subject as this without attempting a tribute, 
however imperfect the design, or feeble the execu- 
tion, to the memory of our Patriot Fathers. They 
w^ere no common race of men. God made them for 
the times in which they lived and acted, and the sj)i- 
rit of the times raised them to that eminence which 
they finally attained. When we consider their num- 
ber, their talents, their virtues, and their achievements, 
it would be difficult, in the annals of the world, to find 
their equals, in any country, during a single age. It 
may be truly said, that " there were giants in the 
earth in those days." And God, in special favor to 
our land, gave us an army of them, in this single cri- 
sis of our national being, — and every man in that ar- 
my was himself a host. Their love of liberty was 
inhaled with their first breath, and they had never 
learned to live in any other element. Their patriot- 
ism breathed, amidst their other virtues, a master- 
passion, and rendered them " mighty in words and in 
deeds." Their disinterested sacrifices for the public 
weal — their inflexible adherence to justice, let the 
blow fall where it might — their magnanimity amid 
scenes and circumstances the most cheerless and de- 
pressing — their fortitude that could endure every 
thing but the tyrant's heavy yoke and his gallino- fet- 
ters — the cool and collected courage, insj:)ired by the 
love of God and their country, which faced the oath- 

4 



26 

ering storm, which seemed ready to burst upon their 
devoted heads, have long since commanded the ad- 
miration of the world, and may well excite a deeper 
and holier emotion in the bosom of their offspring. 
On them, under propitious heaven, hung, for a time, 
the fate of our empire, and the hopes of the world. 
These men, having fulfilled their high earthly desti- 
ny, have passed away from the society of the living; 
and but here and there a solitary pilgrim lingers 
among us, as a specimen of the best race of men that 
this country has yet produced. But their monu- 
ments, purer than marble, may be every where seen 
in our national institutions ; and their epitaph, more 
durable than engravings upon brass, is daily read in 
the praises of a grateful people. 

I cannot tell you with what mingled emotions I 
have trodden the consecrated soil of Bunker Hill, 
once sprinkled with their blood, or stood, at other 
times, by some of their sepulchres. On the banks of 
the mighty Potomac, and near its calm and deej:* wa- 
ters, I have thought of the struggles of the revolu- 
tion — of the conflicts of mind which framed our con- 
stitution, and matured our systems of government — 
of the dark storm that had passed by, and of the 
scenes of future brightness which may mark our 
country's progress through the long tract of coming 
aoes, while I have mused, in silence, at the humble 
toml) of Washington. The mighty dead have seem- 
ed to collect around me, till losing the consciousness 
of the present, 1 have mingled in the conflicts of the 
historical past, and reposed in the calmness of tho 



27 

prophetic future. There are many such hallowed 
spots on the American soil, sacred to the same lofty 
associations, where the christian freeman may stand, 
with equal delight and profit, and pay his homage to 
the patriot's memory, and his adoration to the pa- 
triot's God. And, in such a place, and at such a mo- 
ment, who cannot gaze with thrilling raptures upon 
that picture which truth and poetry have furnished 
for such occasions, and in which reality and fancy 
have united their highest powers, and blended their 
finest colors; and to which genius has added her 
most beauteous touch. 

"How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes blest ! 
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Returns to deck their hallowed mould, 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod, 
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 

" By fairy hands their knell is rung, 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray. 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay; 
And Freedom shall awhile repair, 
To dwell a weeping hermit there." 



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